


The Age of Reason

by woollen_pharaohs



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Character Study, M/M, classic lit transcription, this is half a joke and half a serious attempt to analyse the portrayal of repressed homosexuality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-02-10 14:42:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18662458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/woollen_pharaohs/pseuds/woollen_pharaohs
Summary: Dennis encounters Mac trying to steal a dictionary from a bookstore. Bad flirting somehow works, then they go back to Mac's apartment to 'wrestle'.





	1. Hands

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so when I was reading The Age of Reason, Daniel really reminded me of Dennis in that they are both literally the worst people but also they are so deep in denial/struggling with their sense of self that it's somehow humorous? So here's this practically word-for-word transcription of Jean-Paul Sartre's _The Age of Reason_ (1945) with Dennis as Daniel and set in Philadelphia instead of Paris. 
> 
> (P.S. the only changes have been changing the names and also a slight plot change in chapter 2 to lead into Boris and Ralph both being Mac for the purposes of this fic, so it goes without saying that i don't claim JPS's writing as my own, just transcribing it into the iasip universe for fun here.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Excerpt taken from Sartre, JP 1945, _The Age of Reason_ , Ch 7, pp. 86-88, Penguin Books. - pages would vary depending on your edition.

“Give me a peppered Vodka in a balloon glass.”

He swallowed the Vodka and remained for a moment plunged in meditation, with a firework in his mouth. ‘Won’t it ever end?’ he thought to himself. But these were surface thoughts, as usual, cheques without funds to meet them. ‘What won’t ever end? What won’t ever end?’ Whereupon a shrill miaow was heard, and the sound of scratching. The barman gave a start. 

“They are cats,” said Dennis curtly. 

He got off the stool, flung twenty bucks on to the counter and picked up the basket. As he lifted it, he noticed a tiny red drop on the floor: blood. ‘What can they be up to inside there,’ thought Dennis distressfully. But he could not bring himself to lift the lid. For the moment the little cage contained nothing but a solid, undifferentiated fear: if he opened the basket, that fear would dissolve once more into  _ his cats _ , which Dennis could not have endured. ‘You couldn’t endure it, eh? And supposing I did lift that lid?’ But Dennis was already outside, and again the blindness fell, a clear and dewy blindness: your eyes itched, fire seemed to fill the vision, then came the sudden realization that for moments past you have been looking at houses, houses a hundred yards ahead, airy and insubstantial, edifices of smoke. At the end of the road stood a high blue wall. ‘It’s uncanny to see too clearly’, thought Dennis. It was thus that he imagined Hell: a vision that penetrated everything, and saw to the very end of the world, -- the depths of a man’s self. The basket shook at the extremity of his arm: the creatures inside it were clawing each other. The terror that he felt so near to his hand -- Dennis wasn’t sure whether it disgusted or delighted him: anyway, it came to the same thing. ‘There is always something to reassure them, they can smell me.’ And Dennis thought, ‘I am, indeed, for them, a smell.’ Patience, though: Dennis would soon be divested of that familiar smell, he would walk about without a smell, alone amid his fellow-men, who haven’t fine enough senses to spot a man by his smell. Without a smell or a shadow, without a past, nothing more than an invisible uprootment from the self towards the future. Dennis noticed that he was a few steps in advance of his body -- yonder, at the level of the gas-jet, and that he was watching his own progress, hobbling a little under his burden, stiff-jointed and already soaked in sweat: he saw himself come, he was no more than a disembodied vision. But the shop-window of a dyeing establishment presented his reflection, and the illusion was dispelled. Dennis filled himself with viscous, vapid water: himself: the water of the Schuylkill, vapid and viscous, would fill the basket, and they would claw each other to pieces. A vast revulsion came upon him -- this was surely a wanton act. He had stopped and set the basket on the ground. One could only damage oneself through the harm one did to others. One could never get directly at oneself. Once more he thought of Constantinople where faithless spouses were put in a sack with hydrophobic cats, and the sack thrown in the Bosphorus. Barrels, leather sacks, wicker baskets: prisons. ‘There are worse things.’ Dennis shrugged his shoulders: another thought without funds to meet it. He didn’t want to adopt a tragic attitude, he had done that too often in the past. Besides, that meant taking oneself seriously. Never, never again would Dennis take himself seriously. The motor-bus suddenly appeared, Dennis waved to the driver and got into the first-class compartment. 

“As far as you go.”

“Six tickets,” said the conductor. 

Schuylkill water would drive them crazy. Coffee-coloured water with violet gleams in it. A woman came in and sat opposite him, a prim, respectable female, with a little girl. The little girl observed the basket with interest: ‘Nasty little insect’, thought Dennis. The basket miaowed, and Dennis started, as though he has been caught in the act of murder. 

“What is it?” asked the little girl in a shrill voice. 

“Hush,” said her mother. “Don’t annoy the gentleman.”

“It’s cats,” said Dennis. 

“Are they yours?” asked the little girl. 

“Yes.”

“Why are you taking them about in a basket?”

“Because they’re ill,” said Dennis mildly. 

“May I see them?”

“Jeannine,” said her mother, “mind what you’re saying.”

“I can’t show them to you, they’re ill, and rather savage.”

“Oh,” said the little girl in a calm, insinuating tone, “they’ll be quite all right with me, the little darlings.”

“Do you think so? Look here, my dear,” said Dennis in a low, hurried voice, “I’m going to drown by cats, that’s what I’m going to do, and do you know why? Because, no longer ago than this morning, they clawed the face of a pretty little girl like you, who came to bring me some flowers, and now she’ll have to have a glass eye.”

“Oh!” cried the little girl in consternation. She threw a terror-stricken glance at the basket, and clung to her mother’s skirts. 

“There, there,” said the mother, turning indignant eyes upon Dennis. “You must keep quiet, you see, and not chatter to everyone you meet. Don’t be frightened, darling, the gentleman was only joking.”

Dennis returned her look placidly. ‘She detests me,’ he thought, with satisfaction. Behind the windows he could see the grey houses gliding by, and he knew that the good woman was looking at him. ‘An angry mother: she’s looking for something to dislike in me. And it won’t be my face’, No one ever disliked Dennis’ face. ‘Nor my suit, which is new and handsome. My hands, perhaps.’ His hands were short and strong, a little fleshy, with black hairs at the joints. He spread them out on his knees (‘Look at them -- just look at them’). But the woman had abandoned the encounter; she was staring straight ahead of her with a crass expression on her face: she was at rest. Dennis eyed her with a kind of eagerness: these people who rested -- how did they manage it? She had let her whole person sag into herself and sat dissolved in it. There was nothing in that head of hers that resembled a frantic flight from self, neither curiosity, nor hatred, nor any motion, not the faintest undulation: nothing but the thick integument of sleep.


	2. A man's man

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Excerpt taken from Sartre, JP 1945, _The Age of Reason_ , Ch 9, pp. 143-147, Penguin Books. - pages would vary depending on your edition.

Behind his back, without doubt, the store clerk had turned round to watch him. He must start the performance, look through the volume and play the part of an idler who hesitates and at last succumbs. Mac opened the dictionary at random. He read:

‘A man for’ -- ‘To be inclined towards. A phrase now in fairly common use. Example: “The parson was no end of a man for” -- Render: the parson was much inclined towards … “A man for men” or “A man’s man”, is also used for “Invert” [Modern day: Homosexual]. This idiom apparently originates in South-Western France…’

The succeeding pages were not cut. Mac read no further and began to laugh silently. He repeated with delight: ‘The parson was no end of a man for…’ Then he became abruptly serious and began to count: ‘One: two: three: four,’ while a high, pure joy made his heart beat faster. 

He felt a hand upon his shoulder. ‘I’m done,’ thought Mac, ‘but they’ve struck too soon, they can’t prove anything against me.’ He turned around slowly and with composure. It was Dennis Reynolds, a friend of their mutual friend Charlie. Mac had seen him two or three times, and thought Dennis rather splendid: though, at the moment, he did not look too pleasant. 

“Good morning,” said Dennis. “What are you reading? You look quite absorbed.”

No, he didn’t really look unpleasant, but there was no sense in taking risks: as a matter of fact he seemed rather too agreeable, as though he had a nasty surprise in store for Mac. And then, as ill luck would have it, he had come upon Mac just as he was looking at the Slang-Dictionary, a fact which would certainly reach Charlie’s ears, and give him much sardonic satisfaction. 

“I just stopped as I was passing,” he said rather awkwardly. 

Dennis smiled: he picked up the volume in both hands and raised it to his eyes: he must be rather short-sighted. Mac admired his nonchalance: those who turned over the pages of books usually took care to leave them on the table, for fear of detectives. But it was clear that Dennis thought he could do as he pleased. Mac muttered hoarsely, with an assumed air of indifference:

“It’s a curious work…”

Dennis did not answer: he seemed absorbed in what he was reading. Mac became annoyed, and scrutinized him narrowly. But he had fairly to recognise that Dennis presented an extremely elegant appearance. In point of fact, there was, in the almost pink tweed suit, the linen shirt, and yellow necktie, a calculated bravado that rather shocked Mac. Mac liked a sober, slightly casual elegance. Nonetheless, the total effect was irreproachable, though rather lusciously suggestive of fresh butter. Dennis burst out laughing. He had a warm, attractive laugh, and Mac liked him because he opened his mouth wide when he laughed. 

“A man’s man!” said Dennis. “A man’s man! That’s a grand phrase, I must use it whenever I can.”

He replaced the book on the table. 

“Are you a man’s man, Mac?”

“I…” began Mac, and his breath failed him as he thought of Charlie. 

“Don’t blush,” said Dennis -- and Mac felt himself becoming scarlet -- “and believe me when I tell you that the idea didn’t even enter my head. I know how to recognise a man’s man” -- the expression obviously amused him -- “There’s a soft rotundity in their movements that is quite unmistakable. Whereas you -- I’ve been watching you for a moment or two, and was greatly charmed: your movements are quick and graceful, but they are also angular. You must be clever with your hands.”

Mac listened attentively: it is always interesting to hear someone explain his view of you. And Dennis had a very agreeable bass voice. His eyes, indeed, were baffling: at first sight, they seemed to be brimming with friendly feelings, but a closer view discovered in them something hard and almost fanatic. ‘He’s trying to pull my leg,’ thought Mac, and remained on the alert. He would have liked to ask Dennis what he meant by ‘angular movements’ but he did not dare, he thought it would be better to talk as little as possible, and then, under that insistent gaze, he felt a strange and bewildered access of sensibility arise within him, and he longed to snort and stamp to dispel that dizzying impulse. He turned his head away and a rather painful silence followed. ‘He’ll take me for a bloody fool,’ thought Mac with resignation. 

“Now, might I guess that you were trying to take this book... elsewhere?” Dennis said suggestively. 

Mac glanced at the shopkeep who was now attending to a paying customer. 

“I often regret that I am quite ignorant on … that subject. I should have needed someone to initiate me,” said Dennis. “Someone of your sort. Not too much of an expert, but one who took the subject seriously.” He laughed, as though a pleasant notion had crossed his mind: “Look here, it would be amusing if I took lessons from you…”

Mac eyed him with mistrust. This must be a trap. He could not see himself in the process of instructing Dennis in the ways of theft as Dennis would certainly be much more intelligent than himself. He would choke with nervousness. He reflected with cold resignation that the time must now be five minutes to the closing time of the store, and he would have no choice but to leave with Dennis, whom he cannot shake from conversation. Dennis was still smiling, he looked as though he were delighting with his own idea. But he had curious eyes. Mac found it hard to look him in the face. 

“I’m very lazy, you know,” said Dennis. “You would have to be strict with me…”

A man with such convictions, Mac thought he should be frightened of him, yet at this moment, he felt an immense sense of competition swell within him, that he should use to prove to someone -- to whom? To himself? To Dennis? To the moustachioed shopkeep? That he had set foot in this bookstore to steal and he should leave with that effectually completed. 

“Look here, can you spare a minute? We might have a drink opposite and discuss our scheme.”

“Our scheme…” Mac began, his eyes having darted to eye the shopkeep who had just finished up with his customer. Dennis slid his arm over the pile of books in a very snakey motion and collected the slang dictionary on the way, and clapped the book under his hand on Mac’s chest, as if he weren’t holding a book at all. Mac clasped the book before it fell and quickly concealed it under his coat, as Dennis flung his arm over Mac’s shoulders and began to swiftly stride the two of them out of the shop.


	3. Cats

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Excerpt taken from Sartre, JP 1945, _The Age of Reason_ , Ch 16, pp. 261-265, Penguin Books. - pages would vary depending on your edition.

Dennis bent down a little and set about retying the knot of his necktie: he was in a hurry to get himself dressed. In the mirror, behind him, almost effaced by the half-darkness and the white discolourations on the mirror, he could see Mac’s haggard, harsh profile, and his hands began to tremble: he longed to squeeze that thin neck with its protuberant Adam’s apple, and feel it crack beneath his fingers. Mac turned his head towards the glass, he did not know that Dennis was looking at him, and eyed him with a queer expression. ‘He’s looking positively murderous,’ thought Dennis with a shiver -- almost, in fact, almost a shiver of enjoyment -- ‘he’s hurt in his little masculine pride, he hates me.’ He took time over knotting his tie. Mac was still looking at him, and Dennis was enjoying the hatred that united them, a rejuvenated hatred, that seemed to date back twenty years, a veritable possession: he felt the purer for it. ‘One day a fellow like that will come and knock me out from behind.’ The youthful face would expand in the mirror, and that would be the end -- the infamous death that was his due. He swung suddenly round, Mac promptly lowered his eyes. The room was a furnace. 

“You haven’t got a towel?”

Dennis’ hands were moist. 

“There may be one in the bathroom.”

In the bathroom there was in fact a dirty towel. Dennis wiped his hands carefully. 

“There has never been a clean towel in this bathroom. You don’t appear to wash much, you and Charlie.”

“Charlie washes under the tap in the passage,” said Mac in a surly tone. After a pause, he added: “It’s more convenient.”

He slipped on his shoes, sitting on the edge of the truckle bedstead, his torso bent, and his right knee raised. Dennis eyes the slim back, and the young muscular arms protruding from the cut-off shirt: ‘He has charm,’ he thought dispassionately. But he lother that very charm. In an instant he would be outside, and all this would be over. But he knew what awaited him outside: just as he was putting on his jacket he hesitated: his shoulders and chest were bathed in sweat, he realized with annoyance that the weight of the coat would make his linen shirt stick to his damp flesh. 

“It’s disgustingly hot in here,” he said to Mac. 

“We’re right under the roof.”

“What time is it?”

“Nine o’clock: just struck.”

Ten hours to kill before daylight. He could not go to bed after that sort of episode, it always upset him much more if he did. 

“I wanted to ask you, Dennis… Was it you who advised Charlie to go back to his cleaning work?”

“Advised? No. I told him he was a fool to have walked out on that job.”

“Aha! That’s not the same thing. He came and told me this morning that he was going to apologize, that it was you who wanted him to, but he didn’t look as though he were telling the truth.”

“I don’t want him to do anything,” said Dennis: “and I certainly didn’t tell him to apologize.”

They both smiled contemptuously. Dennis was on the point of putting on his jacket, but his heart failed him. 

“I said -- do as you like,” said Mac, bending down again. “It’s not my business. If that's what Dennis advised … but I see what it is now.”

He tugged savagely at the lace of his left shoe. 

“I shan’t say anything to him,” said he, “He’s like that, he can’t help telling lies. But there's one chap I swear I’ll catch by the short hairs.”

“At the cleaners?”

“Yes. Not the old one. The young chap. You know what he said about Charlie and me. Charlie can’t have much pride to go back to that hole. Mark my words. I’ll be waiting for that chap one evening when he leaves the shop.”

He smiled an evil smile, in enjoyment of his own anger. 

“I’ll just stroll up with my hands in my pockets and a nasty look in my eye -- you recognise me, do you? Good! What’s this you’ve been saying about me, eh? What have you been saying about me? -- And the chap will answer: I didn’t say anything … I didn’t say anything -- Oh, didn’t you! -- Then a jab in the stomach that’ll knock him over, and I’ll jump on him and bash his mug against the pavement.”

Dennis eyed him with ironical disfavour: and he thought: ‘They’re all alike.’ All except Charlie, who was a female.  _ Afterwards, _ they are always different sorts of people. Not the kind of timid person they were in a public bookshop or drunk on the street.  _ Afterwards  _ they’re always talking about smashing someone’s face. Mac was becoming excited, his eyes were gleaming and his ears were scarlet: he felt impelled to make abrupt and vivid gestures. Dennis could not resist the desire to humiliate him still further. 

“But perhaps he’ll knock you out?” 

“Ha?” jeered Mac. “let him come along. You’ve only got to ask the waiter at Guigino's: he’ll tell you. A chap about thirty with tremendous arms. He said he was going to throw me out.”

Dennis smiled offensively. “And you just ate him up, of course.”

“Ask anyone you like,” said Mac indignantly. “There were about ten of them, looking on -- You come outside -- I said to him. There was Charlie and a big chap, I’ve seen you with him -- Rex, works at the gym. So he went out -- Want to teach a grown man how to behave, eh?  -- says he to me. So I set about him properly. I socked him one in the eye to begin with, and then, when he came back for another, jabbed him with my elbow. Just like that. Flat on the nose.’ He had got up, and began to mimic the episodes of the encounter. He swung round, displaying his firm small buttocks under his tightly-fitting blue trousers. Dennis was seized by an access of rage, and longed to knock him down. “He was pissing blood,” continued Mac, “so I grabbed his legs and tipped him over. And my friend, the grown man, didn’t know where he was when I’d done with him.”

He paused, malevolent and swollen with pride, sheltering now behind his deed of glory. He looked like an insect. ‘I wish I could kill him,’ thought Dennis. He did not really believe these stories, but it nonetheless humiliated him to think that Mac had knocked down a man of thirty. He began to laugh. 

“Mind how you throw your weight about,” he said slowly: “You’ll get what’s coming to you one of these days.”

“I don’t throw my weight about,” he said, “but it isn’t the big chaps i’m afraid of.”

“So,” said Dennis, “you aren’t afraid of anyone, eh? Not of anyone?”

Mac flushed. “The big chaps aren’t the strongest,” he said. 

“And what about you? Let’s see how strong you are,” said Dennis, pushing him. “Just let’s see.” 

Mac stood for a moment with his mouth open, then his eyes glittered. 

“As it’s you -- I don’t mind. For fun, of course,” he said in a sibilant voice. 

“For fun, of course,” Dennis repeated, “We steal, we wrestle, we…” The suggestion hung in the air.

Mac grinned. “And no dirty business. You won’t get the best of it.”

Dennis grabbed him by the belt: “I'll show you, my poppet.”

Mac was lithe and sinewy: his muscles rippled under Dennis’ hands. They wrestled in silence, and Dennis began to pant. Mac finally managed to lift him off his feet, but Dennis thrust both hands into his face, and Mac let go. They stood confronting each other, each with a venomous smile upon his face. 

“So you would, would you!” said Mac in a strange voice. He made a sudden dash at Dennis with his head down. Dennis dodged his head, and grabbed him by the back of the neck. He was already out of breath. Mac did not look in the least tired. They clinched again, and began to revolve in the middle of the room. Dennis was aware of a sour and feverish taste at the back of his mouth. ‘I must finish him off or he’ll do me in’. He pushed at Mac with all his strength, but Mac resisted. Dennis was possessed by a maniacal fury, as thought: ‘I’m making a fool of myself.’ He bent down suddenly, seizing Mac by the small of his back, lifted him, flung him on the bed, and with the same impulse fell on top of him. Mac struggled and tried to scratch, but Dennis seized his wrists and held them down on the bolster. Thus they remained for several moments. Dennis was too exhausted to get up. Mac lay immovable and helpless, with the weight of a man -- another grown man -- flattening him out. 

“Well, who had the best of that?” gasped Dennis. “Who had the best of that, my little friend?”

Mac promptly smilled, and said slyly: “You’re a stout fellow, Dennis.”

Dennis released him, and rose to his feet. He was out of breath, and felt humiliated. His heart was throbbing violently. 

“I used to be a stout fellow,” he said, “At the moment I can hardly get my wind.”

Mac was on his feet, straightening his collar, and breathing naturally. He tried to laugh, but he evaded Dennis’ eyes. 

“Wind isn’t what matters,” he said generously. “It’s training.”

They both grinned with an air of embarrassment. Dennis longed to take Mac by the throat and dash his fist into his face. He slipped on his coat again: his short, soaked as it was with sweat, stuck to his skin. 

“Well,” hes said, “I must be off. Good-bye.”

“Good-bye, Dennis.”

“I’ve hidden something for you in the room,” said Dennis, “Look for it carefully, and you’ll find it.”

The door closed. Dennis walked rather unsteadily downstairs. ‘First and foremost I must get a wash,’ he thought: ‘wash myself from head to foot.’ As he emerged into the street, a thought suddenly came upon him and brought him up short. He had left his apartment door open last night, and his cats had surely run out. 

**Author's Note:**

> anyway I wonder if JPS meant to use cats as an allegory for repressed homosexuality because it works on so many levels.


End file.
